Fire in Center City disrupts afternoon

By Michelle Talisesky
Collegian Staff
September 27, 2006

Philadelphia was rocked by something other than the art museum’s newly placed statue of Rocky on Thursday, Sept. 21. An underground cable caught fire in Center City, near the intersection of 15th and Market Streets, causing mass chaos and evacuations.

The events of the afternoon were a series of cause and effect relationships. Underground cables became overloaded, which led to smoke blowing from several manholes above ground, which caused pedestrians to panic. Finally, there was the boom, usually a telltale sign that an explosion occurred. Luckily, not this time.

Initially, many thought that there was an explosion of some sort, but officials later announced that it was a cable fire which was occurring underground. The electrical cable failed at about 11 a.m. Michael Wood, a spokesman for PECO, told reporters that a few hours later, a customer tried to fix the problem and then unintentionally started the fire.

The smoke from the fire started pouring out of several manholes, causing some of the covers to blow completely off completely due to some accumulated gases underground. The fire smoldered for more than two hours. One person was taken to the hospital with minor injuries, but fortunately, no one was seriously hurt.

The blaze was confined to an underground space of about one square block, but above ground a 25-square block area was shut down. Five thousand people were evacuated from their office buildings, according to Fire Commissioner Lloyd Ayers.

Ten large buildings sustained a loss of power due to the fire, as well as an unknown number of smaller customers, Wood told reporters. PECO worked to restore their service by rerouting the power around the problem area.

The area where the fire occurred is near the City Hall subway station, and the suburban station, which carries commuters out of the city.

City officials braced for the worst, as the evening rush hour approached, but the streets were reopened in time to avoid any significant delays. In addition, the fire did not cause any problems or delays with mass transit, according to SEPTA.

taliseskym1@lasalle.edu